Problem-Solving Strategies - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 89

What problems did you solve while learning toward the test? How did
you solve them? What were your difficulties while writing the test? Did
you face these difficulties only during the test or did you face them also
while learning toward the test? If you faced these difficulties while learn-
ing toward the test, what did prevent you to deepen your understanding? If
you faced the difficulties only during the test, try to speculate why you did
not face them before.
The students are asked to work in small groups and to:
1. Classify the reflective questions into two groups: questions that relate
to pupils' learning processes and questions that relate to pupils' under-
standing of the learned concepts.
2. Design at least two additional reflective questions for each class of
reflective questions.
3. In your opinion, how can such reflective questions contribute to learn-
ers' future learning processes in general and problem-solving pro-
cesses in particular?
• Stage D: Analysis of the entire reflective activity designed by the teacher
after the test failure
This stage is based on the analysis of the next episode of the case study.
After the pupils had written their own reflection based on the previous
reflective questions (see Stage C), they were asked to further accomplish
the next two phases:
1. To design by themselves a test on the same contents of the test they
took with the same structure. The teacher rationale for this task was
that the development of meaningful questions requires deep under-
standing of the subject matter. To accomplish this task, the pupils were
also asked to solve the questions they composed.
2. To reflect on their current knowledge by considering the following
leading questions provided by the teacher: Did you overcome your
previous difficulties? How did you overcome these difficulties? Do
you feel ready to take a repeated test? With respect to what concepts
you still feel unconfident? What do you think about the computer sci-
ence concepts you learned—interest vs. boring; important vs. unnec-
essary; difficult vs. simple?
The students' task is to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of this
kind of teaching-learning process.
For example, we mention the following advantages: pupils are active, take
responsibility on their learning processes and understanding, think and
focus on what concepts they did not understand, take the teacher's per-
spective, and reflect on different affective issues, such as their interests,
priorities, concerns, and confidence. Nevertheless, it should be remem-
bered that such an activity sets several pedagogical challenges, such as